Posted on November 20, 2018 by Heidi Mandelin‧28 Comments
Otome visual novels have been popping up on Nintendo Switch’s eShop a lot. They’re fluffy and sweet, some are a bit risqué, and the basic premise of all of them is that every guy wants to date you. Pick your favorite guy, go through their story, and hopefully you’ll get the “happy end”.
Another common feature of select otome games is an extremely poor translation. Today we’ll take a look at a game called Kitty Love -Way to look for love-.
You play a young woman (I named her Vessel Avatar) who works in a flower shop, and you’re cursed to transform into a cat every night. The way to break the curse is to kiss your true love. But you have a problem… you don’t have a true love! Time to woo a dude for a kiss.
Almost every line in the game has a spelling or grammar issue. Some lines are fine, but the way they’re worded makes them funny. I selected the best of the worst for this gallery. Enjoy!
Every line except those said by the player character is voice-acted – even the meows and hisses made by stray cats. He’s a small sampling of those cat sounds:
These are just a few of the strange translations in Kitty Love -Way to look for love-, so if you’re a fan of this sort of thing, definitely check out the full game sometime. And if you discover any other Switch games with bad translations, share them in the comments or on Twitter so we can take a detailed look at them here!
“[B]uttering the week”? How did they smash together “but during” like that? Was the game script dictated? That’s the only way I can imagine that mistake occurring. A person or machine misheard it.
I don’t know how you do it, Mato. You *always* seem to find the most delightfully mangled translations. It’s like a gift of yours or something. Keep up the good work. 😛
This is even better than Sword Art Online! Magnificent!
Thanks! But to be fair it was Poe/Heidi who did almost all of the work for this article. She’s been documenting a buuunch of these new bad eShop translations, so there’s even more to come!
Boy, the eShop really has become a cesspool for these types of games, lately. Nintendo should really step up their quality control in approving what goes up for sale.
The machine translations I’m finding here feel worse than they technically are. The reason being the romantic dialogue, (the language sounds a little risque in the machine translation but the kitty form you mention provides a veil that allows for it) romance one expects to be powerful, natural and emotive language. Machine translating it makes it cold, unnatural, and weak, the exact opposite of what you want for getting the romantic mood this game is supposed to provide. -Unless you visit this site to the point that bad translations make lorr mewed on floor yew wunt.
Mm-hmm, exactly. I started playing a different otoge on the Switch with a VERY good translation, and holy cow it’s such a difference. Makes me actually interested in the story.
The Men of Yoshiwara, both Kikuya and Ohgiya. Kikuya I’ve noticed has some typo issues, but it’s written so much beautifully than Kitty Love, lol. (also whoa warning, they’re pretty risqué)
The bit about the character who “drowned” on the couch (instead of “drowsed”) really made me laugh. Too bad those badly translated otome games are still on the expensive side on the eshop, because if they were, say, $10, I’d get them for the sheer hilarity of their translations.
I’m glad I didn’t check this one out…I was curious about it because I like the sound of the premise (lady turning into cat) but as much as I sometimes enjoy bad/broken translations I don’t think I want to play a whole VN of this. lol Sometimes, things like this can be funny (like the old translation of DragonFangZ for example, where it’s weirdly charming…I took some screens as comparison and wish I could have gotten more) but when a game’s text is the focus…
I downloaded the demo for this very recently, and it looks like (for the demo at least) they have updated a lot of the mistranslation issues. This makes me sad, but nothing to be done about it.
Honestly “my anxiety came from out of my mouth” is a mood.
I wonder what “Umwindowsill” was supposed to be. Its placement in the sentence makes me think it might be some kind of bizarre mistranslation of “gomen nasai.”
“It made frown” reminds me of the janky lyrics of “Eyes on Me” from Final Fantasy VIII.
Some of these make me pretty sure there was an overreliance on Google Translate, which I believe Clyde may have warned about on occasion. 🙂
You forgot one of the funniest ones, “Are you going to let me wipe?”
“[B]uttering the week”? How did they smash together “but during” like that? Was the game script dictated? That’s the only way I can imagine that mistake occurring. A person or machine misheard it.
Wait, THAT’S what they meant by buttering?! I could not for the life of me figure out what was actually meant by that line.
The “you are f to me” one makes me think of the “press F to pay respects” meme.
It vmakes me think that they censored a four-letter word, but forgot the asterisks.
I considered both of those possibilities when I read it too, and “You are f to me” has now entered my vocabulary.
I don’t know how you do it, Mato. You *always* seem to find the most delightfully mangled translations. It’s like a gift of yours or something. Keep up the good work. 😛
This is even better than Sword Art Online! Magnificent!
Thanks! But to be fair it was Poe/Heidi who did almost all of the work for this article. She’s been documenting a buuunch of these new bad eShop translations, so there’s even more to come!
Ahh, I see. Well, then, direct my compliments to her, as well!
thank you :3
Boy, the eShop really has become a cesspool for these types of games, lately. Nintendo should really step up their quality control in approving what goes up for sale.
The machine translations I’m finding here feel worse than they technically are. The reason being the romantic dialogue, (the language sounds a little risque in the machine translation but the kitty form you mention provides a veil that allows for it) romance one expects to be powerful, natural and emotive language. Machine translating it makes it cold, unnatural, and weak, the exact opposite of what you want for getting the romantic mood this game is supposed to provide. -Unless you visit this site to the point that bad translations make lorr mewed on floor yew wunt.
Mm-hmm, exactly. I started playing a different otoge on the Switch with a VERY good translation, and holy cow it’s such a difference. Makes me actually interested in the story.
Which game was it, if I’m allowed to ask? Would love to appreciate the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of translation!
The Men of Yoshiwara, both Kikuya and Ohgiya. Kikuya I’ve noticed has some typo issues, but it’s written so much beautifully than Kitty Love, lol. (also whoa warning, they’re pretty risqué)
So the voice actors all read that garbage? Reminds me of Castle Shikigami 2 on the PS2.
Nah, Japanese voice acting only. They were really lazy with this release.
Game Grumps just did a few videos on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhmWn5IZimU
I can only shake my head at the sheer level of incompetence and unprofessionalism in this translation.
There had to be points where the translation made figuring out what to do next harder than it should have been.
YES, there was lol
The bit about the character who “drowned” on the couch (instead of “drowsed”) really made me laugh. Too bad those badly translated otome games are still on the expensive side on the eshop, because if they were, say, $10, I’d get them for the sheer hilarity of their translations.
Yeah, $25 is kind of an insane price for this amount of “quality”. But I suspect it’s because of all the voice acting. Gotta pay them actors~
I’m glad I didn’t check this one out…I was curious about it because I like the sound of the premise (lady turning into cat) but as much as I sometimes enjoy bad/broken translations I don’t think I want to play a whole VN of this. lol Sometimes, things like this can be funny (like the old translation of DragonFangZ for example, where it’s weirdly charming…I took some screens as comparison and wish I could have gotten more) but when a game’s text is the focus…
I downloaded the demo for this very recently, and it looks like (for the demo at least) they have updated a lot of the mistranslation issues. This makes me sad, but nothing to be done about it.
Honestly “my anxiety came from out of my mouth” is a mood.
I wonder what “Umwindowsill” was supposed to be. Its placement in the sentence makes me think it might be some kind of bizarre mistranslation of “gomen nasai.”